playlist
hci club
Nicholas Chen
tracks
At the start of June, my friend proposed an idea: meet up at 7am to work on personal projects before work. Saying yes to this was the best decision I've made this year. This is a playlist capturing the vibes of our morning work sessions.
"早" quite literally meanings "early" in Chinese. This song is by one of my favorite Chinese rock bands, and it captures the serenity of an early morning perfectly with its serene mix of perfectly layered horns.
These next 3 songs are from the Metal Gear Solid V soundtrack. That might seem really random but MGSV (and its creator Hideo Kojima's personal taste) have been a huge influence on me. I haven't played many of his games, but after seeing the trailer for Death Stranding the summer after my freshman year of college I fell in love with everything about his work. I love the art direction, I love the outlandish plots, I love how they push the medium of video games to their limits.
This sounds strange, but the central game mechanic of MGSV where you constantly upgrade your base and your equipment made me wonder how I could build tools to upgrade my life, and that is part of what inspired my interest in tools for thought.
Beyond that, Kojima introduced me to rock and indie music for the first time in my life - before that, I listened mostly to hip hop, because it was what everyone at my high school listened to.
"The Start of a Journey" in particular captures the feeling of adventure and potential that these morning sessions have. For the first time in a while, I feel the sense of adventure and excitement that I felt working on my own side projects for the first time in college.
When my friend saw this song on the playlist, he pointed at it and went "WOO-OOO-OOAAAAAAHHH!" If you listen to it you'll see why.
One of my favorite jazz songs, and it's about mornings. A no-brainer for this playlist.
This is the song that plays in TENET when the protagonist has a fateful meeting with his future ally. I feel like these morning sessions have been similarly fateful.
Dawn in the Adan makes it into the playlist because of its name - it's about mornings. It also captures the feeling of being on the brink of something new and promising.
We started these morning meetings right as June began. It felt like summer arrived all at once - the weather instantly got warmer and we started a new ritual that felt fresh and full of promise. This song captures some of that feeling.
